“So, if you don’t mind me asking, do you also have . . .” Ben couldn’t quite finish the question.
“Well, no,” Sean said. “My string is a bit longer than the folks in this group, but I’m licensed as a clinical social worker, and helping people through difficult circumstances is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
Ben nodded quietly, as an approaching brunette rescued him from any ensuing small talk.
“Hi, Sean,” she said, placing her tote on the nearest chair.
“Ben, meet Lea. Lea, meet Ben.” Sean swiveled between the two.
“Welcome to the party.” Lea smiled sweetly.
The remainder of the group filed in quickly. The oldest was a physician in his early forties. （At least Ben assumed he was a doctor, since a few of the others greeted him as “Doc,” though he introduced himself simply as Hank.） The rest appeared closer to Ben’s own age, scattered throughout their twenties and thirties.
Chelsea, a strawberry blonde who looked like she had just left the tanning salon, entered the room while reading something on her phone, trailed by a series of men: the burly, bearded Carl, his face slightly obscured by a Mets cap; the lanky Nihal, in a Princeton sweatshirt; and the dapper Terrell, whose gleaming black oxfords made Ben glance shamefully at his weathered canvas sneakers.
The final arrival was Ben’s fellow newcomer, a woman named Maura, who sat down next to Ben and offered a half smile and a half nod that Ben received as a silent summation of the entire group’s unspoken sentiments: It sucks to be us.
But at least there is an us.
Maura
Maura hadn’t wanted to join the support group. Joining felt like admitting defeat, and Maura was no defeatist. She only agreed in order to placate her girlfriend.
Nina hadn’t even wanted to look at their strings when they first arrived, which wasn’t very surprising. Nina was always the cautious one.
But when they finally opened their boxes at Maura’s urging, she instantly wished they hadn’t.
Nina had tried her best to allay Maura’s fears, to convince her that the strings weren’t real. But Maura had been fighting a queasiness, a lack of appetite, and a general sense of dread ever since the day they’d looked.
And then, about a week later, Nina returned home from her office and told Maura to sit down, that she had something she needed to tell her.
“Deborah got a call today,” Nina said slowly. “From someone at the Health Department.” Her eyes had already turned glassy, and she was struggling to find the next words.
But Maura understood.
“Just say it, Nina. Just fucking say it!”
Nina swallowed. “They’re real.”
Maura jumped off the couch and sprinted to the bathroom, crumpling onto the cold tiles. When she vomited into the toilet, Maura could feel Nina holding back her dark curls, and she knew Nina was holding back tears.
“It’s going to be okay,” Nina kept saying, gently rubbing her hand up and down Maura’s back. “We’ll get through this.”
But for the first time in their two years together, Maura couldn’t find comfort in Nina’s words.
They sat in front of the television the following night, their hands clutched together, as the president made a speech urging citizens to stay calm, and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services made a speech outlining the researchers’ findings, and the director of the World Health Organization and the UN secretary general both made speeches calling for global solidarity and compassion during this moment of uncharted crisis.
The Pope even emerged on his balcony in Vatican City to address the millions of frightened souls who were no doubt waiting for his guidance.
“I would like to remind everyone of the words we repeat at each Mass: ‘The mystery of faith.’ We know that faith, true faith, calls upon us to accept that some mysteries will always lie beyond our comprehension while here on earth,” the Pope declared, his words translated for all. “Our knowledge of our Creator will always be imperfect. As we read in Romans 11:33, ‘Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!’ Today, we are faced with the incomprehensible, the inscrutable. We are asked to believe that these boxes contain knowledge that has, until now, been reserved for God alone. But this is not the first time that we have been called upon to believe in what was once unbelievable. Even the Apostles did not believe, at first, that Jesus Christ had risen from the grave, but we know it to be true. And just as I have no doubt in the resurrection, I have no doubt that these boxes are a gift from God to His children, for there is no one else more powerful, more knowing, and more giving than the Lord our God.”